


The Arch

by mcicioni



Category: Rome (TV 2005)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers here and there for the whole series.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:08:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcicioni/pseuds/mcicioni
Summary: Yet another post-series life-on-the-farm futurefic.
Relationships: Titus Pullo/Lucius Vorenus
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	1. Moving

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about twelve years ago, in 2007. I am reposting it because the future of livejournal is uncertain, and because the series "Rome" has a soft spot in my heart.
> 
> Pedantic Note 1: The Arch of Augustus in Ariminum (nowadays Rimini), built in 27 BC, is still one of the town's main landmarks, although with the totally incongruous addition of some medieval crenellations.
> 
> Problematic Note 2: The show's timelines are all over the place! By the time of Octavian's triumph (30 BC), Lucius, born approx. in 50, should be about 20. Vorena the Younger, 4-5 years older than her brother, should be 24 or 25 (and, by Roman standards, an old maid). Caesarion/ Aeneas, born approx. in 47, should be about 13. I am trying to steer a middle course between what the characters' ages ought to be, and what they are in canon. In this story (set in 30-27 BC), Vorena the Younger is 19 or 20, Lucius about 17, Aeneas about 13.

  
"He should have died weeks ago," Pullo says to Lyde. "But he wanted to get home. He won't last long, now."

"Thank _you_ , Doctor Pullo." Stubborn bastard. He's practically on the shore of the River Styx, and he still cracks a joke. "Right, then," Pullo grumbles. "Make up your mind!"

After the children have come, kissed their father and quietly left, Pullo resumes his place, sitting on the edge of his friend's bed, watching Vorenus smile softly to himself, at peace at last. They nod to each other, almost imperceptibly, and Pullo holds Vorenus' hands between his own, while his heart is hammering inside his chest, and while he's silently, frantically sending assorted prayers, resolutions, promises and offers of his own life to all the gods he can think of.

One of Vorenus' fingers taps on his hand, and Pullo looks down, and Vorenus is smiling at him, his little lopsided, ironic smile. "My mind's made up," he whispers between laboured breaths. "I'm not going to die."

"All right," Pullo says casually, while he silently redoubles his prayers, offers and bargains.

"But …" Vorenus' voice is barely a murmur, Pullo must bend close to hear what he's trying to say "… people had better believe … I am dead." A pause, Pullo can hear the wheels turning in his head. "The boy too."

"You don't say," Pullo replies as sarcastically as he can. "You just shut up and work on not dying. The rest's a piece of cake."

  
  


"Is Lucius Vorenus better?" Aeneas – Pullo has almost got used to the new name, and so has the boy, although he hates it – has come into the room, concern clearly visible under the not-quite-abandoned regal confidence. Vorenus is dozing, and Pullo is sitting by the window, deep in memories of the month the three of them spent travelling back to Rome, with Vorenus constantly on the threshold of the Other Side. Once, when they were still in the desert, his blood was seeping through the bottom of the wagon, and Pullo could not staunch it and was sure that this was going to be the end, when they stopped at a well and an old woman saw them and led them to her shack.

_She says the wound will have to be cleansed and burned._

_Tell her she can go and …no, wait. We've run out of options. Tell her to just do it. But tell her to have a good look at this knife before she starts. He dies, she dies one moment later._

It had taken all the combined strength of Pullo, Aeneas, the woman and two thick swordbelts to keep Vorenus down while she sprinkled some green powders on the wound and set fire to them. At the end – after Vorenus had fainted, when the bleeding slowed and finally stopped – Pullo had put his knife away and given her all the coins in his belt and a hug. Aeneas had translated back and forth throughout the process, white as a clean toga and shaking like a leaf, but standing fully alert between Pullo and the woman, never faltering until he was told that he was no longer needed. Then he had rushed out of the shack and cried his eyes out.

And the endless voyage on the fishermen's boat Pullo had hired, with Vorenus lying motionless in his bunk and biting his lips to shreds so as not to cry out, Aeneas vomiting continuously and Pullo's guts in a permanent knot of abject fear. One night, in the middle of a squall, they had caught a rat that was trying to bite Pullo's leg, and sacrificed it to Triton, for a safe journey and Vorenus' health. Aeneas had insisted on slashing his palm as well, and Pullo had let him. And so Vorenus had made it back to Rome, through a combination of Gyppo potions, divine intervention and – the main factor, without the shadow of a doubt – his own bloody hard-headedness.

Pullo glances at Aeneas, who has moved to stand between the bed and the window, close to him but not touching. "Looks like it," he answers with a little smile, and reaches out and lays a light, reassuring hand on the boy's shoulder. He hasn't told him anything yet. First things first.

  
  


Octavian Caesar is alone in his big marble hall, and stands up for Pullo, greeting him by name, with a small smile. For a moment there is a little genuine warmth between them, they are really speaking to each other, two men who have saved each other's lives and laughed with, and at, each other, in spite of differences too numerous to count.

"Old friends are a rare commodity," the First Citizen says, and the temperature between them cools. Young Octavian looked straight at you, Octavian Caesar looks at you and at the same time looks into the distance, probably wondering how he can best use the commodity in front of him. Pullo sits down, and answers his clipped questions with clipped, easy lies about cutting Caesarion's throat and tossing his head away because it had gone bad and didn't look like anyone any more.

"And Lucius Vorenus?" "He didn't make it," Pullo looks straight into Octavian Caesar's distant eyes, allowing a slight catch to be heard in his voice as he utters the conventional military formula. "It's a shame." Light, polite, terse. "He was a good man." Another conventional formula, the commodity in front of Octavian Caesar is of no further use to him and can be rewarded and dismissed.

At the agreed meeting-place, in a teeming street on the Aventine, Aeneas pops up beside Pullo who is impulsively giving a coin to a beggar. "So?" he demands. "He bought it," Pullo says expansively, but privately he wonders if during the interview he should have sounded more bereaved, more inclined to look back than ahead. Oh well, what's done is done. He half-listens to the boy prattling on about how his brother Osiris should let him live to avenge his mother, and wonders – he has been wondering about this for a while – how much what a man is and does is due to blood, and how much to upbringing. In the case of Aeneas, he can't make up his mind.

"I'll not rest until I have avenged my mother and lived up to my father's name," Aeneas prattles on. Well, maybe now is a good time. Pullo lays an arm across the boy's shoulder and steers him through the crowd.

"Listen. About your father …"

  
  


"Ariminum?" Vorenus is lying on a cot in the dingy room where the family have hidden him, on the second floor of an old tenement in the Suburra, not far from the Street of the Woodworkers. His voice is still laboured and breathy, not that this stops him from arguing. He utters the name of the town as if it were somewhere in Outer Pannonia, or Britannia, rather than on the Eastern side of the Appennines, not far from the Rubicon, a mere six or seven days' travel.

"Ariminum," Pullo says firmly. The farm Mascius heard about is far enough from Rome, and there won't be too many questions asked since the former owner died of old age and his young heirs are keen to sell everything and move to the big city. With what Cleopatra gave Vorenus, what Octavian Caesar gave Pullo for the supposed assassination, and what they made from selling the land the Voreni had been given by Caesar, they have more than enough. Pullo understands what Rome means to every one of the Voreni – the noise and bustle and smells and accents of Rome are in his blood too, and so are all the memories, good and bad – but if they miss this chance and stick around for much longer they're all done for. So he overrides the objections from Lyde and Vorena the Elder (they can keep their vow of chastity, but if they want to stay with the family they'll have to say goodbye to the other priestesses) and from Aeneas (if it's cold and wet up North, he'll just have to wear more clothes), signs the official bill of sale, and shakes hands with the officially-deceased Vorenus to seal their unofficial equal partnership.

Before they leave, Pullo buys four slaves, because it can be done more quickly and unobtrusively in Rome than up North. He gets a young stable boy, two experienced farm hands and a girl a couple of years older than Lucius, who will help around the house. Her name is Uta, she is from Eastern Gaul, speaks pretty good Latin and works quietly and efficiently. She's no beauty, her nose is broken, she has hardly any breasts and does not smile, her only good points are a mass of untidy auburn curls and long skinny legs.

They travel to Ariminum in November, two or three at a time. The first to leave are Lyde, Uta and one of the farm hands, who drives the wagon where Vorenus lies under some sacking, surrounded by bales of hay and sacks of seed which can be handy camouflage items if necessary. The boys and the other farm hands follow, on mules and donkeys. Pullo and the two girls are last, on a wagon laden with farming tools, spare wheels and, carefully concealed, a few weapons.

When they arrive, they see that the land is rich and fertile and that the farmhouse is beautiful, low with many windows, but the old owner had stopped worrying about both. Some fences are down, some sheep have strayed into neighbouring fields. The vineyard is a tangled mess of assorted weeds. The roof of the house leaks, and the roof of the barn leaks worse. And there are only four bedrooms. One is for the slaves, another for Lyde and the girls, another for the boys, and the one with the fewest leaks, the old owner's bedroom, is for Vorenus. Everyone takes for granted that Pullo will share that room, and its big double bed.

The first months are hard. It's cold, it rains, they all have to learn to do urgent repairs under adverse conditions. The townspeople speak in a strange accent, the market stalls sell different kinds of food, occasionally Pullo feels trapped, and Vorenus is a bad-tempered patient, frustrated by his slow rate of recovery and also, although he obviously knows why, by having to keep a low profile with the neighbours and in town.

Lucius and Aeneas do their share of work, but occasionally they disappear on exploratory expeditions, and soon they discover that two hours' walk down the hill there is a fishing harbour and a long sandy beach with small coves, rocks and bushes. Vorenus wants to concentrate on settling in and establishing work schedules and routines, but Pullo decrees that men recovering from serious lung wounds need to breathe sea air, and on a couple of sunny days they take the wagon, some food and blankets, and spend some relaxed time smelling the salt in the air, watching the gulls, racing and throwing a ball on the long stretches of beach.

Repairs begin in earnest as soon as the weather improves. Pullo starts thinking up grandiose schemes of installing baths; the women begin to clear a little square of land to make into a herb garden; the farm hands finish clearing the vineyard and trim the vines. Their first wine will hardly be drinkable, but there's always next year. All the plans stop, however, on a windy morning in early spring, when an elderly man and a teenage boy ride up on mules, ask to speak to the _pater familias_ , and try not to act surprised when Pullo and Vorenus receive them together.

"I am Sextus Camillus, from the farm on the next hill. This is my grandson, Sextus Minor. I bring you a bundle of wine cuttings, as a sign of good will. I also bring bad news."

They give the bad news as they sit in the courtyard, eating dried figs and drinking watered wine. A couple of pirate ships from Dalmatia have been raiding nearby harbour towns. "We don't want to let this happen to us. We don't want the pirates to take our women and children and sell them into slavery, and to wreck our boats and raid our stores of fish." A pause. "The problem is that we don't know how to set up defences." Pullo and Vorenus exchange the briefest of glances and keep listening. "From the way you speak, the two of you are from Rome. From the way you handle yourselves, it is obvious that you both served in the Legions." Vorenus nods in acknowledgement. They have to admit at least this much. "Whatever your reasons were for leaving Rome, that's not our business." However, from the expression on his face when he looks at them, it is obvious that he has heard something about the Aventine Collegium. They all sip wine and look straight ahead.

Sextus grows impatient. "We need your help," he says flatly. "You may need ours. And there isn't much time, the ships usually start coming as soon as conditions become easier. Usually towards the end of Aprilis."

"It's the middle of Martius," Pullo says. Then he leans towards Sextus and looks straight into his eyes. "It won't be easy. Tell me, how many of your men are trained to kill?"

Sextus flinches. "Not many."

Pullo frowns. "We could train some of your fittest men in basic defence skills," he says slowly. "But it'll be hard work. They'll have to learn to hurt, maim, kill." "And don't fool yourselves," Vorenus adds, "you'll lose some men, maybe most. With no guarantee of stopping the pirates. But you're right. We have to try."

They are not sorry when Sextus leaves. "He's too curious. When this is over, we had better not have anything more to do with him or his family," says Vorenus, looking at the members of his household as if they were soldiers lined up at parade. "When this is over, there aren't going to be many of us left, unless you two start training in close combat from tomorrow," says Pullo, surveying the boys and shaking his head.

The following morning, Pullo and Vorenus get their sons out of bed before the sky turns from black to deep blue. First they see to the cows, then they give the boys sticks and find a place behind the stables where they can try out the first blocks and parries. The next morning they find Sextus Minor and four other young men waiting behind the stables, rubbing sleep from their eyes. Sextus and another one have swords, another has an axe, the rest carry pitchforks. Pullo and Vorenus look them over, then look at each other. "All right, form a straight line," Pullo orders, while Vorenus goes back to the house.

"This is serious. Dead serious. This is about defending ourselves. From someone who wants to kill us, or take us away and sell us," Pullo says, looking intently at them. Vorenus is at his side again, with two more swords, his shield and the old bone whistle he wore for most of the Gallic wars. Straining his voice to be heard by everyone, and sounding harsher than he ever did in the Thirteenth, he divides them into pairs, gives them blunt kitchen knives and – after a demonstration by himself and Pullo – has them take turns at cutting the partner's throat and stabbing him in the balls. Pullo cuts a switch and wields it on whatever part of their bodies they don't use as they've been told.

"Half of them won't be back tomorrow," Vorenus snorts at the end of the session, as they head back to the house.

"Think so?" Pullo glances sideways at him, amused. The next morning, the troop has grown: eleven men and an audience, the slave Uta, who does not miss one of their movements and at the end walks up to Pullo and asks if she can take part in the training.

"At least some of the time. I will do double my usual chores. I promise." Pullo looks her over and is about to nod agreement, when Vorenus shakes his head. "Fighting isn't for women," he says flatly. "And the last thing we want is to get even more of a reputation than we've already got. So go back to the house." The girl looks from one to the other and her eyes fill, but she squares her shoulders and wheels around to return to the kitchen. Pullo catches something she whispers to herself, puts a hand on her shoulder, turns her around and gently lifts her chin.

"What was that?"

She looks into his eyes, sees something there, swallows and answers. "If I had had training last year, maybe my sister would still be alive." Pullo gives Vorenus a long look. Vorenus glances at his younger daughter, who is standing silently at the kitchen door, then at Lucius, then at Uta, and finally nods. "You'll train until you drop," he promises, curt. "You won't regret this, masters," is the equally curt reply.

And they don't. Probably because of her situation, she is the least fazed by Pullo's taunts and blows, and never needs to be shouted at or hit more than once. Every morning, whatever the weather, Pullo and Vorenus spend two hours making their troop weave, dodge, jump, roll, block, attack, and learn to use whatever weapon they're best at. Uta is useless with sword and knife, but she runs fast on those long legs of hers, and her sharp eyes and strong arms make her pretty good with a bow and arrow. Neither of their two boys is Legion material, but Lucius is the only one who can throw a spear, and Aeneas seems to know how to hold a dagger.

Vorenus' lungs are not what they were, but he is still a formidable drill instructor. "We're not playing at throwing balls here," he says coldly to Aeneas. "You're short and you know nothing about fighting, boy, your only chance is one sequence, done fast and properly." He waits for an acknowledgement, and when he does not get one he adds, "Or else give that dagger to someone who wants to use it, and go back to the house with the women." Aeneas goes crimson and his eyes fill, but he keeps his mouth shut even when Vorenus makes him repeat the sequence – drop, roll on the ground, slice at a leg, stab upwards, drop, roll, slice, stab, fast and properly – over a hundred times, mercilessly, until the boy has got it right.

Training time extends to most of the morning with hardly anyone noticing. They practise holds, feints, belly stabs, back stabs ("He's trying to kill you and your family, so _yes_ , you fucking stab him in the back if he gives you half a chance"). Once Pullo gets completely involved in explaining a lunge to one of the lads: "Go deep like this, in the back, just above the waist, so you pierce his lungs …" and then he turns to Vorenus and the words dry in his mouth, and he forgets where they are and stares without breathing. "That's right," Vorenus says quietly, matter-of-factly, "but Pullo here wasn't doing it properly, you need to twist your torso when you lunge, like this," and as he demonstrates he glances at Pullo and a corner of his mouth lifts, a friendly challenge to his companion, to Dis, maybe to both.

Late one night, Pullo gets up to answer a call of nature, and hears a series of rhythmic thwacks somewhere behind the stable. He grabs a shovel and goes to see. It's Uta shooting arrows at a post, with Lucius standing motionless beside it. Most of the arrows seem to have hit the target. "Are you two out of your fucking minds?" he yells. "It was my idea, master," she says quickly, blushing. "No, it was my idea," Lucius says, unfazed. "I wanted to encourage her to shoot really straight." "Bloody stupid idea, whoever thought of it." Pullo sends them off to bed, threatening to kick their bums all the way back to Rome if he catches them doing anything this brainless again. It's only when he lies down beside a still-sleeping Vorenus that he's struck by the way the two idiots were looking at each other.

The following morning the last two recruits show up, and they turn out to be the best: a middle-aged man who introduces himself as Probus, veteran of the Ninth Legion, and his woman, tall, hefty and quiet. "I fought with the Ninth in Britannia. Now I own a fishing boat here. And this one," he jerks his head towards the woman, "has learned to cast a different kind of net."

"A different …?" Pullo frowns at them, has another look at the woman, thinks hard, and smiles at her. "Nestia, right? You used to fight in the arena, and won your wooden sword and your freedom. Best woman gladiator ever, with that net of yours." She nods briefly, without returning the smile. "And I know you, Titus Pullo of the Aventine." Her accent is Northern and heavy. "It will be good to fight on your side."

Other preparations don't take long. A few fishing boats are left in the harbour, the pirates must believe that everything is as normal, that they're not expected. The fishermen and harbour dwellers are told to lock up their possessions and families; all the troop leave their homes and find temporary accommodation in fishermen's houses and shacks. A team of look-outs is set up at various points along the beach, so that the defenders can be alerted at the first sign of pirate ships. All the weapons have been cleaned and sharpened. Now they wait.

Vorenus, who was at Actium, thinks of something else. They gather some of the fishermen and ask if anyone is a good underwater swimmer. "We're all good swimmers here," an old man says challengingly. Pullo and Vorenus say nothing and wait. After a while a young man – tall, lithe, with long limbs and deep-green eyes – stands up. "This is a dangerous job, right?" he says quietly in his thick, clipped accent. "I swim like a fish, and have no family." Pullo and Vorenus take him to the farm, explain a number of things, and he leaves the next day with a parcel tightly wrapped up in a wineskin and oilcloth. They clap him on the shoulder and wish him the favour of the gods.

Often, at night, Pullo and Vorenus turn to each other in the dark. Few words are exchanged, the indispensable ones, _yes_ and _here_ and _wait_ and _now_. Afterwards, they lie on their sides, facing each other, and Vorenus cups a hand around the side of Pullo's neck, and Pullo looks at him and smiles, silently thanking all the gods who may be watching. They have known, from the day they enlisted in the Legions, and for every waking hour for the past twenty or so years, that each day may be the last. And that at the same time each day is a gift from the gods. Now this awareness is sharper than ever, when they think about their troop, and what all of them are risking. Until they stop thinking, and _oh yeah_ , and _again_ , and _so good_.

And early one morning there are hasty steps to the door of their shack, and a quick loud knock. They throw off their blankets, throw on their tunics, buckle on their swords and daggers, grip each other's shoulders, and run to the agreed meeting-place behind some boulders at the end of the beach. They're all there, Nestia with the net and trident Pullo remembers from her days in the arena, Probus beside her, quiet and grim with his legionary's sword and shield, and Sextus Minor with his friends, and their own two boys, and Uta.


	2. The Pirates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle against the pirates and its aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many many thanks to Timberwolfoz, for her help, especially remembering who's supposed to be where.

Two ships are heading for the stretch of beach beside the harbour. They are long and sleek, their shape different from any Roman or Egyptian vessels. They drop anchor in the deep water beside the harbour, and soon two relay boats detach themselves from the side of each ship and head for the shore. Four boats, about ten men in each. By the time they reach the shallows Vorenus, Pullo and their troop are lying in wait behind boulders and trees. They had expected more than one boat and have divided their troop into two groups, one led by Vorenus and Probus, the other by Pullo and Nestia.

Pullo positions Uta in a relatively safe spot behind some bushes on top of a sand dune, with her bow and all the arrows they have been able to gather. "You stay here and pick them off. Only let fly when you're absolutely sure of hitting someone. Shoot fast and _move_ after each arrow."

"Master, I am in less danger than you, or Master Lucius," she objects.

"That's right," he says shortly. "Because you're useless at hand-to-hand, the bow is the one thing you're good at." She pales, and for a second he's tempted to comfort her, but she'd probably hate that, and there's no time. Before he strides off, he ruffles her hair, quickly and awkwardly, as he used to do with Vorena the Younger and Lucius when they were little, and shoves a small dagger into her hand. Just in case. They nod at each other, no words are needed.

The moment all the invaders step out of the boats Vorenus blows his whistle once, _follow me_ , and he and his men emerge and make straight for the men who are by the pier; Pullo shouts out an order, and he and his group move to intercept the men who have landed by the rocks. They have surprise and training on their side, as well as Uta's arrows which begin to whistle out from behind the dunes and pierce a forehead, a chest, a sword arm.

Vorenus sees some pirates taking off towards the harbour and blows another single blast on his whistle and they're in pursuit, fast and close together, a unit. Nestia moves away from Pullo to block a straggler: she swings at him with her net, casting it over his shoulders in a wide sweep, then moves in and plunges her trident at his stomach – one blow suffices. She bends down and cuts his throat, the quick merciful death of the arena, glances around, retrieves her weapons, and is off again, stalking another opponent.

A huge brute with a curved sword wheels around in mid-run and rushes Pullo with two-handed blows and a war-cry in his language. Pullo is in his element again, blood racing through his veins, his brains at one with his arms and legs and weapons, blocking the blows and waiting for the right time to strike back. Beside him, one of the friends of Sextus Minor is wielding his axe against another man with a sword – he's having a hard time, he's not fast enough, he isn't going to make it by himself. Pullo's opponent finally lowers his guard for a moment and Pullo head-butts him, breaking his nose with a loud crunch. The man drops his sword, howling; Pullo slashes him deep across the chest, glances at him to make sure that he won't cause any grief to anyone else, and turns towards the lad with the axe. Too late; he's twitching on the ground, the axe next to him, his neck slashed, his opponent casting his eyes around in search of more easy prey. Pullo bends quickly, picks up the axe and throws it at the man, hitting him square in the chest and leaving him to thrash around on the bloodstained sand.

Nestia has been surrounded by three men, one has only a dagger, but two have curved swords. She moves fast, deflects a sword thrust with her trident, and with her other hand she spins her net in the air and brings it down on the one with a dagger, capturing him. While she wheels around and faces another one, the third quickly moves behind her, looking for the right moment to strike. Lucius is several feet away, too far to engage with them, all he can do is hurl his spear with all his strength towards the man's back. The spear rises, arcs and falls, and the man collapses face down, the shaft buried in his back. Nestia thanks Lucius with a brief nod, snarls at her opponent, feints with her trident, then swings it around sharply and pierces him in the throat. But the man captured in the net has managed to cut himself free, and before she can turn to him he jumps her and knifes her in the stomach. She staggers, grabs her trident in both hands and stabs him with all the strength she has left. He dies at once, and she sags to her knees beside him, blood spreading on her tunic and down her legs. Pullo runs to her side, but one glance is enough, she's dying. He tries to hold her head up, she looks at him with rapidly glazing eyes, whispers "Probus" and a few more words in her language, blood gushes out of her mouth, and she's dead.

Pullo closes her eyes, wishing her a safe passage across the River Styx. When he looks up, he sees Vorenus halfway up the beach, alone, leaning forward, his hands on his thighs, fighting for breath. Pullo races to stand in front of him, sword held low. "Get out of here," he shouts. "Piss off, Pullo," Vorenus coughs out. He slowly straightens, taking deeper breaths. "Get back to your men. It's an order." Pullo shakes his head, postponing the debate as to whether retired Prefects are in a position to give orders to retired legionaries. Vorenus moves away from him, takes a firmer grip on his sword, steps into the path of a stocky man with a broadsword and starts trading blows with him. Pullo looks on for just a moment, sighs briefly, then looks towards the pier and spots a tall, slim figure sliding into the water, naked but for a belt with a small parcel tied to it. He disappears under the waves, only his head bobs up occasionally, to vanish again one moment later. Pullo draws in a short breath, and briefly asks Mars and Vulcan that the flint, steel and hemp may stay dry until needed, and that he may swim back to safety.

There's another loud noise, a shout mixed with jeering laughter. Aeneas has taken on a grizzled man with a beard and a paunch, and a broadsword against Aeneas' dagger. The man looks down at the youth contemptuously, but in the blink of an eye Aeneas drops, rolls, slices at a hamstring, jumps up and stabs upwards, fast and properly. The man falls forwards, twitching, and Aeneas looks at him for a long moment, then runs towards the sea, vomiting and sobbing. Vorenus, still exchanging hard blows with his opponent, is pressing him back across the beach; suddenly he feints, strikes below the other's guard, and stabs him in the chest. He sees Aeneas, briefly touches his shoulder and speaks to him, and the boy nods, wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, and sprints towards Sextus Minor, who is by the boats, trying to hold off two pirates.

Probus is by the pier, and he and some fishermen are doing a good job of pushing back some pirates who are threatening the moored boats. He bellows orders, dodges, parries, thrusts; the fishermen fight with spears, sticks and long knives, and the attack is repelled, dead pirates are thrown off the pier, wounded pirates are finished off. Probus puts his hands on his hips, leans back, stretching for a moment, then looks around to see who may be needing his help, sees Nestia's body, and his scream is heard all the way to the end of the beach.

Pullo hears the scream, but can do nothing for Probus because a dark-skinned man with a sword and a dagger is moving towards him. They circle each other, feinting and dodging each other's attacks, until Pullo sees an opening, strikes with all his strength and slices off the man's sword arm. Before he collapses, however, he manages to swing his dagger in a broad arc, and Pullo feels searing heat across his thigh, then blood flowing down his leg. He grits his teeth, runs for brief cover, tears a strip off his tunic and knots it tightly around his leg. He looks up, scanning the battlefield, and his heart skips a beat.

Close to the other end, near the sand dunes, Lucius is in trouble. A stocky man with red hair has wounded him in the right arm; he has dropped his sword and is stumbling; one of his feet slides out from under him and he falls sideways, with a scream of pain. The red-haired man is about to strike him down, and there's nothing Pullo can do. Pullo limps desperately towards them, then freezes in shock. Uta, bow and empty quiver dropped behind her, clutching her little dagger, is flying silently down the dune, straight towards the back of the pirate, and when she's right behind him she lets out a high-pitched shriek and sticks the dagger into him with everything she's got. It's a bad thrust, she gets the pirate in the shoulder instead of the neck, but the strength of the blow has half-stunned him, and when he turns and slashes at her with his sword she manages to twist sideways the way Pullo and Vorenus taught her, and the sword cuts into her side but does not kill her. She crumples to the sand, he snarls at her and is about to deliver the death blow, but by this time Vorenus has come up right behind them, and lunges once, straight for the pirate's throat. He falls, blood spurting out of him and staining her tunic, and Vorenus looks at Lucius and Uta, tells them to take cover, coughs, and blows his whistle twice, _to me_.

The pirates know that they've lost, and are trying to retreat. The ones closest to the water's edge run for the boats and find that two of them have been hacked to pieces by a group of men and women from the town. Vorenus, Pullo and what's left of their troop make it to the boats before the townspeople are slaughtered. They are just beginning to engage with the pirates when a roaring noise from offshore makes them all stop for a fraction of a moment. Both ships are on fire, the sails are ablaze, flames are climbing up the masts, smoke is rising to the clouds, and men, some of them on fire, are jumping into the waves. Pullo sends silent thanks to the young fisherman and hopes that he is swimming safely back. Then, shoulder to shoulder with Vorenus, he starts pushing back and cutting down the pirates who are trying to get away.

A few pirates manage to climb into one of the two remaining boats and row furiously against the tide, towards the open sea, their last hope of survival. But a large fishing vessel detaches itself from the pier and, powered by many strong arms, swoops out in pursuit, catching up with the boat before it reaches the end of the cove.

The pirates left around the pier make a desperate dash for the last boat, but in front of it there's a long solid line of grim-faced men and women carrying grappling hooks, sharpened stakes, firewood axes. The line closes around the invaders, it becomes a circle, a vortex of movements, blows, shouts and screams. Blood streams out from under the circle, staining the sand. Finally there's silence, the circle breaks up again into a line, and the people of Ariminum move away from the bodies of the pirates and wade into the shallows, waiting for the pirates who are trying to swim ashore from the burning ships and the other boat.

Pullo finds that Vorenus is no longer beside him and frantically scans the beach, section after section. Vorenus is behind the rocks, kneeling in the sand, purple-faced, coughing and gulping for air. "Slow down the breath," Pullo says softly, bending over him. Vorenus straightens up, sees Pullo's thigh, narrows his eyes and finds his voice: "You dropped your guard ... you fool … look at your leg." "Shut up and breathe, Dis take you," Pullo shouts back, offering a hand up. "Slow down, breathe out harder." Vorenus accepts the hand, stands up slowly, breathes out and briefly touches his forehead against Pullo's: "He won't. I gave him up long ago. And anyway, I'm not ready yet."

They lean a little on each other as they walk on the blood-spattered sand. Corpses of pirates, fishermen and townspeople lie in pools of drying blood. Old Sextus Camillus is standing knee-deep in the shallows, sobbing beside one of the pirates' destroyed boats: there are two bodies in it, one a pirate, the other his grandson. Aeneas is sitting on a dune, head bowed, arms tightly wrapped around himself. At the foot of the dune, Lucius and Uta are trying to bathe and tie up each other's wounds with pieces of tunic; both are shaking, crying, and holding each other. Probus is kneeling by Nestia's body, one hand tangled in her net, the other stroking her hair, over and over. The swimmer is sitting in the shallows, hair and eyebrows singed, cradling a charred hand in the crook of his other arm. Pullo and Vorenus look at each other. They have seen the aftermath of so many battles, but none of them is easier to bear than the one before it, or the one that will come after.

Late at night, after the funerals for their dead have been arranged – the pyres will be lit tomorrow – and after everyone has been cleaned up and stitched up, Pullo and Vorenus go to their bedroom. As he pulls his tunic over his head, Pullo sighs, seeking words, unable to find any that will fit.

"Don't say it," Vorenus snaps.

"Right," Pullo snaps back, "I won't. The fava beans are looking stunted, think we gave them enough fertiliser? Should we have planted asparagus instead?"

A soft snort, weary rather than angry. "Just shut up, Pullo."

They lie beside each other for a long time, without touching. Pullo tries not to move a muscle, hoping that Vorenus will go to sleep and leave him to face all the dangers that are closing in around them. The risk that word about the battle will reach Rome – the alternative was unthinkable, nonexistent in fact, but the consequences may be awful. Their failure at being peaceful farmers – he shrugs, soldiering is what they do best, it's what they are and have been since they became men, it's skills they can offer their neighbours in exchange for knowledge about fish and fava beans. The awareness that each of them could lose the other at any time, an awareness that has been travelling at Pullo's side ever since the first time he really looked at Vorenus – was it when they first parted ways outside the house of the Julii, or when Vorenus banished him from his home, or after they walked out of the arena? Pullo laughs softly to himself, it doesn't fucking matter, they've made it this far, they aren't dead tonight and they aren't going to die just yet if he has anything to say about it. He turns on his side and lays a light hand on Vorenus' chest, relieved to feel it rise and fall evenly.

Pale blue eyes look into Pullo's, and, wonder of wonders, there's a little smile there. "You talk too much," Vorenus says, he has been saying it for twenty years. Pullo makes an interrogative noise, he hasn't said one word in hours. "I can hear you loud enough," Vorenus says wryly, and he reaches for Pullo, one hand on his neck, drawing him close, and Pullo shivers, because for most of his life – except the time as a boy in the slave camps, but he never speaks of _that_ to anyone – he has chosen the time, style and speed of his pleasure. Not being in charge of what happens, not choosing, letting another choose fills him with awe and thrills him to the tips of his fingers and toes. Not that he'd ever mention _that_ to anyone either.

  
  


None of the pirates have escaped alive. "Let's hope that the news will spread all the way to Dalmatia, so that nobody will try to land in Ariminum again," fishermen and townspeople say triumphantly. "Let's hope that the news won't spread all the way to Rome," Vorenus mutters under his breath.

The people of Ariminum organise a feast on the beach in honour of the defenders, which causes some discussion in the farm as to who, if anyone, should attend. Vorenus, who is officially dead and who was never fond of social gatherings even when he was officially alive, stays at home and reads Marcus Porcius Cato's treatise _On Farming_. Pullo and the boys go; Pullo eats like a horse, drinks like a fish, and the boys have a hard time loading him into a wheelbarrow and pushing him all the way back home.

In the morning, Pullo wakes up on the bedroom floor, not quite knowing how he got there, and experiencing not-unfamiliar sensations, dry mouth, queasiness, hammering head. His eyes are closed tight, but he hears Vorenus get up and suspects – from experience – that soon he will be on the receiving end of a pitcherful of cold water. Before anything can happen, he hears someone cough loudly on the other side of the curtained doorway. Groaning, he half-opens one eye, struggles to a sitting position, and listens to Vorenus' puzzled "Come."

It's Lucius, apparently none the worse after last night. He gives Pullo a little smile, then grows earnest, and addresses both of them.

"I would like your permission to marry Uta."

Not all that surprising to Pullo, and short and to the point, just like Vorenus. He's nearly eighteen, with his mother's dark hair and big soft eyes, slim and confident, a long way from the fat squalling baby in Niobe's arms. Pullo forgets his hangover and looks fondly at the young man he helped bring up for the eight years Vorenus was in Egypt. "Looks like I'll have to free her, she needs to be free before she can have you. If she'll have you, that is." He stops abruptly, ambushed by memories of another freed slave, and plans for another marriage, and what happened instead. He shakes his head to dispel these memories, they were things that happened in Rome, in another life.

"Lucius," Vorenus says slowly, and Pullo sighs inwardly; has Vorenus ever done anything the easy way? "She's loyal, brave. She saved your life, we'll always be grateful to her. But a _wife_?"

"Because she's a slave? That's what I have been too." Steady, calm and forthright. Pullo remembers the silent child in the camp, half wild, half-starved, terrified, and gives Lucius a swift nod of support.

"You think she's a virgin?" Vorenus' question is just as forthright, and brutal to boot. Pullo clenches his fists, wondering if he should grab him and shake some sense into him right in front of the son sired by neither and loved by both. But Lucius squares his shoulders and looks straight into the face of the head of the household, and Pullo is reminded of Vorenus in front of Caesar, explaining why he had decided to let Pompey go, and to Hades with the consequences. "I'm not the first man who's had her. But I'm the first man she's ever wanted. And I want her, as my wife and the mother of my children."

Pullo sees the vertical line between Vorenus' eyebrows deepen, and sets his jaw. For most of the time they have been together, ever since Vorenus got him out of the cage to go off in search of Caesar's gold standard, he has followed Vorenus' decisions, misguided and insane though some of them were, because the friendship was worth more. But there have been a few times when he gave Vorenus a piece of his mind. On two of those occasions, the result was a rift. This may well be the third time.

"Stop talking bullshit," he snaps. "Family honour and all that cack, all we ever got from it is grief." Vorenus goes white and tenses, but Pullo's musings of the past weeks are finally coalescing into a belief, one of his very few beliefs, one worth holding on to. "Fuck family honour. Fuck blood. Who brings you up, how you grow up, that's what counts." He realizes he has been shouting, lowers his voice. "We are a fucking family. That's what counts."

Vorenus frowns at him for a long, long moment. "So. This family boasts a philosopher," he finally says. He's not smiling, but he clasps Lucius' forearm and nods slowly. Lucius' face lights up, and he looks at them both and swallows hard, and then he races off, shouting Uta's name at the top of his lungs.

"Hard-headed young fool," Vorenus' words are harsher than the tone of his voice. "Isn't he just," Pullo says mildly. "I wonder where he gets it from." He gets a black look from Vorenus, but for once he was not cracking a joke. Poor Niobe was not particularly headtsrong, and Evander was a weak, spineless bastard – so if young Lucius owes his hard-headedness to Pullo or Vorenus or both, that's yet more proof that upbringing is stronger than blood. Pullo washes his face and strides off to go and have another look at the rows of spindly fava beans, pondering what the children of those two will be like, and hoping to live long enough to find out.

  
  


Lucius and Uta get married, a quick, simple ceremony. Lookouts are kept for several weeks, but there's no further threat from pirates. No enquiries from Rome either, and Pullo and Vorenus finally stop worrying.

Probus occasionally turns up at the farm and helps out, not saying much. After the day's work is done, he sometimes sits in the atrium with Pullo and Vorenus, drinking wine and swapping a few stories about Britannia, Gaul, the enemies, the lice, the wounds. "Why don't you take us fishing on your boat some day?" Pullo asks once. Then he looks at Probus' eyes and shuts up. Like Vorenus says, he talks too much.

At the end of the second year since Octavian's triumph over Antony, the family hears two different pieces of news. Uta announces that she and Lucius are going to have a baby, and the Ariminum town crier tells the people that the following Januarius the Senate of Rome will give Octavian the new title of Augustus, the illustrious one, and will celebrate his accomplishments by having a triumphal arch erected as a gate to Ariminum, where the Flaminian Way ends.

Pullo throws his head back and laughs. "All rulers build arches. Wide open, like a woman's welcoming arms. Or a woman's welcoming legs." Vorenus shakes his head and gives him one of his dark sideways looks. "When the arch is completed," he says, slowly and clearly, "there will be a triumphal procession to inaugurate it. Guess who will be coming all the way from Rome to ride through the new arch."


	3. The Arch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past connections, present dangers, and uncertain future.

"What deep holes," Uta says, wrapping her cloak tighter around herself and shivering in the late November sun. At the point where the Flaminian Way and the Aemilian Way meet, the walls of Ariminum have been torn down, and the foundations for the Arch of Augustus laid. Vorenus and Uta have gone to have a look before heading for the marketplace. They have been given the day off from the farm, officially because it's market day and the family needs provisions, but the real reason is that one of them has morning sickness and the other has had a bad week with his lungs.

"They have to be deep, they have to support a massive weight for the next thousand years." Vorenus smiles a little at his daughter-in-law. "And look at the distance between them – the arch is going to be wide. An opening too wide for gates is a symbol of peace. Peace after all the civil wars, I guess." Vorenus, usually ill at ease with women, enjoys Uta's company. Both have Gaulish blood, both tend to be quiet; he is warming to her because she loves and trusts her sisters-in-law and is loved and trusted in return, and because when she looks at Lucius her plain face is radiant with tenderness.

"Will my child be born before or after the arch is finished?" "Before. The baby is due in Junius, the arch will not be completed before the end of September, beginning of October." _So we have less than a year to find out if we're in danger_ , he adds to himself. "Come, let's walk to the market. Remind me of everything we need to get. And before we go home you and I can sit in the square and eat fish dumplings. They're tasty and healthy, and you have to eat for two."

  
  


In early spring, the construction is halfway through. Slaves and stonemasons have been working flat out, and blocks of rough grey stone have been laid, cemented with mortar and faced with smooth grey-white stone to form the two huge pillars. Now wooden scaffolding is being built for the temporary structure which will eventually become the arch.

Pullo and Vorenus go to town on market day, to buy different varieties of seeds. More or less by accident, they seem to have coaxed their fava beans into flourishing, and now they're looking for cucumbers to add to their beans and onions. They make a detour to see how Augustus' arch is progressing.

"It'll be a bloody big, impressive thing," says Pullo, awed in spite of himself. He turns towards Vorenus, frowns and nudges him in the side. "What's wrong?"

Vorenus thinks for a moment, looking for the right words. "Honour, glory and power to one man," he says, looking at the scaffolding, sizing it up. "Antony used to call me a stonewall Catonian," he adds, almost to himself, his line of thought growing less comfortable with every word. "He meant it as a jibe, I think. He saw me as a conservative, who hated and feared anything new." He grimaces at the scaffolding and lowers his voice. "Now 'the new' is the power of one man, elected by no one, who will never step down."

"Things can never stay the same. And once a change starts, there's no going back," Pullo says.

"Things started going to the dogs when we crossed the Rubicon with Caesar," Vorenus says fiercely. "And I went along with him until the day he died, telling myself that he had the Republic's best interest at heart." He looks down, corruption and crime and civil war swirling around in his head, and his part in all of them. Layers of public morals being peeled one after the other, like the leaves of an artichoke. Until the heart of the artichoke was reached, the notion of shared power for the common interest, _res publica_. He lowers his voice again, tries to keep disillusionment and hopelessness out of it. "The Roman Republic is dead for ever, brother."

Pullo looks intently at him, then starts off on a completely new topic. "When we left this morning, there was trouble brewing in the kitchen. Lyde was scolding Uta for sewing baby things." Subtlety was never Pullo's strong point, but Vorenus nods his gratitude for the change of subject, and makes an interrogative sound. "Lyde thinks sewing for the unborn is inviting bad luck." "Women's superstitions," Vorenus says impatiently. "The baby's luck is going to be in our hands," Pullo says without smiling, his voice hard with determination. Vorenus turns his back on the arch, half envying Pullo for the way he brings all politics back to the personal, and half hoping – against all realistic expectations – that when Augustus does come the two of them will have a chance to protect the baby, the family, and each other.

  
  


A few days later, Probus for the first time invites them to go fishing with him. They take Aeneas along, he has been subdued and listless since they fought the pirates, and needs some distraction. "I stayed away from the boat for a long time," Probus says, as they walk towards the harbour. "But fishing is what I have done since I left the Legions, it's my life. More so now that I'm alone." On the pier they're greeted by green-eyed Aulus, the swimmer who set fire to the pirate ships. "I'm the hired hand. Literally," he laughs, pointing to his maimed left hand. It sounds like an old, practised joke, but they all laugh, the friendship is there between them, rough and unspoken.

The fishing trips become a fairly regular occurrence; Aeneas begins to learn how to steer and how to mend the nets, and hopes that eventually he will be allowed to cast them. Their conversation gradually moves from war experiences, sardines and octopus to what they think about and believe in. Whether the gods protect some mortals and hate others. What the moon and the stars are made of. Whether blood counts more than upbringing. Pullo and Probus enjoy these speculations, Vorenus listens patiently lest he be called a Catonian spoilsport.

One afternoon, the boat is rocking gently and drifting a little over deep sea, with only the hills visible behind the distant coastline. While Aeneas is dozing, the men open a wineskin, and after a while their minds are drifting a little too, and before they know it they're talking about death and dying. Pullo begins to sort out a rope tangle, and, without looking at any of them, says: "I envy Nestia, when I think about her. She died well, doing what she was good at, protecting others. My wife was not so lucky. She was murdered." All of them look at him, horrified. "How …?" "Poisoned," Pullo says, staring at the ropes. Vorenus' insides turn to ice. "Did you ever find out who killed her?" he asks, thinking that he should have been there beside Pullo, and then remembering why he had left for Egypt, hating fate, and circumstances, and himself most of all. "Yes. And the bitch died a moment later." Vorenus opens his mouth, then understands and remembers, _It did not end well. It's a long story_. He stares into the dark blue water and cannot find any words. After a few moments, he gets up, squats beside Pullo, takes the ropes from his clenched hands, and starts untangling them. Their shoulders brush, Pullo looks at him, and it's enough.

Probus looks at one of them, then at the other, and does not ask any more questions, but Vorenus can tell that there are several churning inside him, none of them easy, none of them safe. Aulus breaks the silence to announce that he has sighted a school of sardines, and they wake Aeneas and start getting the nets ready.

That night, Vorenus lies beside a snoring Pullo, turning things over in his mind. He used to believe in a number of things. The Republic and its elected rulers. The gods. Marriage. Integrity, incorruptibility, propriety. Sex for marriage and procreation, sex with other men an offence against nature. By the day after the Ides of March he had lost all of his beliefs but one. Strange that the least important belief should have been the last to leave him.

When was it that he had started changing? He frowns in the darkness, feeling an unwelcome wave of heat flooding his cheeks. The first time they met Cleopatra? The smells of sweat and sex in the small tent, his own envy at Pullo's uninhibited energy becoming something else, powerful and unsettling, recognized and hastily pushed away. Or was it after the arena, when he was dragging a half-dead Pullo along the back streets of Rome, and for the first time he had seen the vulnerability beneath the swagger? Absurdly, he had felt at home, there, in the dusty streets; angry and tired and scared, with a couple of broken ribs and a knot in his stomach at the thought of the future, yet more at home there, beside his bleeding comrade, than with Niobe, loved but unfamiliar, loved and desperately wanted, yet unable to make him laugh or to force him to face his lost morality that was the price of his, their, social rise.

The night with Caesarion in the desert was the first time he had fully seen that Titus Pullo, no matter where each of them was, was the other part of him. As they lay together by the dying fire, Pullo had tried one last time to get him to reconsider his decision to go off on his own in Judaea – impossible, all his failures and all the harm he had caused to everyone close to him were part of him, were him, and would be extinguished only with his death. _"That's it then." "Looks like it. I'm sorry." "Then do something for me, brother,"_ a catch and a little shake of the head at the last word, as if it was inadequate but no others were available, _"just this once,"_ and Pullo's hands had touched and caressed and stroked him, and he had gasped and stared, amazed that a man's touch could be rough one moment and gentle the next, stunned at the realization that neither of them had to turn over unless he wanted to. His awkward fumblings in response had been received with a smile, fond rather than mocking: _"I've never ..." " Of course you haven't." " We should stop." "Over my dead body."_ His hands had been taken and shown and taught, _here_ and _harder_ and _ohgodsohfuckyes_. His failures were still there, all of them, but the man at his side knew every single one, and had failures of his own, and yet pressed close to him and gave him what he needed, with eyes full of light, openly asking for pleasure in return, _I've wanted ... Come here_. His own release had been a completion and a homecoming, and it had filled him with the silent awe of all momentous discoveries, and at the same time with confusion and grief at the thought, _never again?_

And the following day there had been the road block, the fight, the wound. The journey through the desert, blood and heat and pain, every breath a stab in the back, every jolt of the wagon wrenching his limbs apart. _Easy, now. This woman's going to look after you. It'll probably hurt worse than Mars and Vulcan buggering you. But you're going to make it._ The boat, the stink, something tearing inside him at every lurch. _We're halfway through. Eat at least a crust. Aeneas and I collected some rainwater. Drink. Slowly. Keep it inside you, now._ And every second, every jolt, every lurch forward, the one thought, through every fibre of his body: live and make it back to Rome, for the children and for Pullo. Unfathomably, there were all given back to him, his life, the love of his children, and the other part of him. Almost enough to make him believe in the gods all over again. Almost.

He knows that Pullo still has some sort of belief in the gods, unpredictable entities to be appeased and bargained with. As for himself, now he knows that the only possible beliefs are in the things and people you learn to know first hand. Through your mistakes and failures. The strongest of these beliefs is that what he and Pullo have become to each other, through mistakes and failures of all kinds, is what has kept him alive in body and spirit.

  
  


Probus still asks them to go fishing, and still drops in at the farm, he's a deft hand at trimming the vines. The unasked questions are still in the air between them, answering them would be too complicated, and some friendships can grow even though there are forbidden areas. _Here be lions_ , as it said on the maps of Africa Vorenus saw in Alexandria, if you want to survive you keep out. Sometimes Vorenus looks at Lyde, at his daughter, at their sons, and sees clouds of uncertainty in their eyes when they look at him and Pullo, and wonders if _here be lions_ is in their minds as well, together with all their dark memories. One day, soon after they moved to the farm, he was about to enter the kitchen when he heard his name in a conversation between Lyde and the girls, and he stopped and listened. "Maybe it's not right," Lyde was saying, "but they love and protect us. And they love and protect each other." The girls said nothing, and Vorenus left the kitchen quietly and made some noise before coming in a second time, and all he could do was hope.

Farm work keeps them too busy to go to town often, but at the end of Maius Lucius and Aeneas go to the carpenter's shop to buy a crib, and report that the arch is almost finished, and that it's amazing even for big-city people like them, one brought up in Rome and the other in Alexandria. The wedge-shaped stones which make up the arch have been fitted into the wooden structure, the keystone has been wedged into place and the wooden structure removed, leaving a wide stone arch towering into the sky. All that's missing now is the marble chariot on top, drawn by four horses and driven by Augustus. A team of twenty sculptors is hard at work on it, and it should be finished by September.

One Junius morning, while she is kneading dough, Uta floods the floor with her waters. Aeneas runs for the midwife, who chases all the men out of the house the moment she sets foot in it. The men walk to the orchard and try to talk about apricot trees and fig trees, but none of them manages to say anything sensible. As the afternoon slides into evening, they hear a sequence of long, loud howls, and they look at one another, pale with fear. Vorenus, the only one with direct experience, remembers the births of his daughters and thinks about different kinds of strength and courage. Then Vorena the Elder runs towards them: "A healthy boy. They're both well. Come and see."

The youngest Vorenus has long hands and feet, a few sparse reddish curls, and huge grey-green eyes. "He looks like a Gaul," his father says, tickling him. "Then he'll be ugly, all Gauls are ugly," Vorenus states. "You've got Gaulish blood yourself," Uta points out, respectfully but with a little mischievous grin. "Come to that, I'm ugly myself," Vorenus says flatly, and Pullo laughs his head off.

Everyone votes that the boy's name should be Titus, except Pullo, who puts his foot down, and has the last word. "New life, new place, new person, new name. And 'Titus Vorenus' sounds bloody silly anyway." So they name him Publius, the boy who technically speaking is nobody's grandson, but who will be theirs by upbringing. They take turns holding him, Aeneas enthusiastically, Lyde and the girls wistfully, Lucius clumsily, Uta with quiet matter-of-fact tenderness.

  
  


By September, Publius has a head of curls and smiles to all and sundry. And Augustus' chariot is lifted onto the big horizontal slab of marble on top of the arch. On the side facing Rome, the best stonemason of the town has carved a golden inscription: the Senate and the people of Rome thank Emperor Augustus Caesar, son of the divine Julius, for the restoration of the Flaminian Way and other roads within Italy.

Augustus Caesar, no longer known as Octavian, arrives just before the Kalends of October. Since Ariminum does not contain any accommodation fit for the First Citizen of Rome and his retinue, the soldiers escorting him erect tents for themselves and a huge pavilion for him outside the walls. On the other side of the arch, they set up a canopy with a golden chair at the centre and rows of chairs behind, on a thick red carpet, for the triumphal procession. The townspeople gather and gawp, but the soldiers' forbidding presence keeps them at a distance.

Vorenus, Pullo and the family are at dinner when one of Sextus Camillus's most trusted slaves arrives with a message, and asks to deliver it to Pullo and Vorenus alone. At his triumphal procession, arranged for two days' time, Augustus Caesar wants "all the heroes who defeated the Dalmatian pirates" to be present and sit behind him. Sextus intends to go, but would like to inform his friends that Augustus already knows both their names, and that he seemed very cold every time he pronounced them.

"Of course he knows about us," Vorenus says grimly. "He must have spies in every town," Pullo surmises. They consider the possible alternatives. Leaving the farm would be absurd – where could they go, with four women and a baby? And, Pullo adds, this is their fucking home, nobody should drive them out, nobody. Hiding would be ridiculous. Should they throw themselves on Augustus' mercy, remind him that he wouldn't be in Ariminum today if they hadn't been in Gaul when he was eleven? They can try. That's what they agree on, and also that the family must know nothing of this whole business. They return to the dinner table and resume eating. Pullo reaches over and snatches the last piece of mutton from Vorenus' plate.

Later, in the bedroom, Pullo takes Vorenus' face between both hands and kisses him hard and deeply, almost desperately, wrapping him up in his arms and holding him almost tight enough to reawaken the old wounds. "Look at me," Vorenus says sternly. "Whatever we do, we do together." He would like to add _It's an order_ , but he doesn't, he says "Swear," and Pullo says "You too," and Vorenus swears, glad that his time as a politician has made him into a convincing liar. And after they have taken and given their pleasure, Vorenus lies on his back, comforted by familiar deep snoring. He would prefer to live, but, like Lyde said to the girls, this is what he and Pullo do, protect each other and the family, and this is the best cause to die for. Before dawn he actually drifts into sleep.

Early the next morning, he opens his eyes and starts getting up without making a sound, when he sees that the other side of the bed is empty. He runs to the kitchen, and breathes in deep relief when Lyde tells him that Pullo has taken Aeneas fishing in Probus' boat. His uniform has been left behind in Alexandria, and he puts on an everyday tunic because Lucius and the women would suspect something if he wore his best clothes. They would get suspicious also if he did what he would very much like to do, embrace and kiss them all, and hold Publius and give him a finger to grab and whisper his wishes for him. So he just briefly tells them that he's going to see Sextus Camillus about buying more vines, and lingers just one extra moment at the door. "Be back soon." His last lie. He never looks back as he walks down the hill.

An autumn breeze is blowing when he arrives at the pavilion. The pennants on top of the poles are fluttering, and the red plumes on the soldiers' helmets are quivering. The guards are a dozen legionaries and a tribune. Vorenus strides up to the tribune and introduces himself with a crisp military salute, "Lucius Vorenus, Prefect of the Evocati." The officer looks uninterested. "I was Marc Antony's tribune in Alexandria." This works immediately. Augustus' tribune disappears into the tent, and Vorenus hears some muffled voices followed by the sound of several men leaving from the other side. A moment later the tribune reappears, gesturing to Vorenus to follow.

Augustus Caesar is sitting not in the centre of the tent but in a corner, behind a marble table, his back against the canvas. The last time Vorenus saw him, ten years ago, he was Octavian, Marc Antony's uneasy ally. Ten years later, he is the vanquisher of Antony and the master of the Roman world; he has a few silver threads in his hair, pale blue eyes whose gaze makes Vorenus think of snakes and rabbits, and a silence that is like thin ice - the man who breaks it will stumble and drown. Vorenus gives him his best salute, and does not waste any time: "I have come to surrender to you, sir. In exchange for my life I ask for your promise that Titus Pullo and all the rest of our family will be left unharmed."

The slightest lifting of an eyebrow. "You're in no position to bargain with anyone, Lucius Vorenus."

Not hard to parry. "Augustus Caesar has come to inaugurate the arch, and to be praised throughout Ariminum and its territory for his generosity and moderation. These virtues would not be apparent if an innocent man were to be slaughtered with his family." A pause. "On the other hand, justice meted out to the right-hand man of Marc Antony, who deserted when Octavian Caesar's army entered Alexandria, would confirm Augustus' reputation for justice."

The reptilian eyes rake over him. "What happened to Caesarion?"

He and Pullo had fabricated that story together. "Dead, sir. A quick death. His head rotted, so Titus Pullo disposed of it."

"So you failed to defend the boy who had been entrusted to you."

Vorenus does not hesitate. "The boy was of no interest to me, sir. He was not worth the friendship with Titus Pullo. I let Pullo follow your orders."

"But, as we both know, Titus Pullo is not very good at following orders." The reptilian eyes are opaque as they turn to the tribune. "Send the other visitor in."

The moment Augustus begins the sentence, Vorenus knows what's coming, and all his muscles tense. Three soldiers march in, and between them, his hands unbound, is Pullo, in his best blue tunic. He comes to stand beside Vorenus, not looking at him or at anyone but Augustus. A rush of anger floods Vorenus, at the idiot hothead, at himself for never suspecting anything, and at himself again for being terrified for Pullo's life. Just like that day in the arena. Worse, because this time the bloody fool has chosen to walk blithely into the death trap.

"Each of you wants the same thing," Augustus Caesar says, and the temperature in the tent cools. "To take all the blame for the deception and die in the other's place." Pullo remains at parade attention, staring straight ahead, his face blank. _I'll fucking kill him_ , Vorenus swears to himself, and then makes a small wry grimace as he considers that he may not have to get his hands dirty, Augustus will crucify them both as part of his celebrations.

"Except," and the temperature cools a little more, "that neither of you is any longer a threat. The pretender Caesarion is dead, the Aventine Collegium has been disbanded, and new legends have replaced Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus." Augustus Caesar makes a small gesture, and the tribune and the guards withdraw, they're alone together. "My father once told me that you two have powerful gods on your side. In his memory, and in deference to those gods he believed in, no charges will be brought against either of you."

Pullo smiles, a trace of the old protective pride of the tutor for his bright pupil. "You're a merciful ruler, Augustus Caesar."

"Don't push the favour of the gods, Titus Pullo. And both of you – don't go back to Rome. Ever. And try keeping the heroics to a minimum here."

"Yes, sir," Pullo says brightly. "We'll stick to growing grapes. We will present you with an amphora of next year's wine." Both Augustus and Vorenus give him black looks. Vorenus wonders if he can actually believe this, they may soon be dismissed, they're free, they can go home and he can tear strips off Pullo and play with Publius.

"One last thing." The reptilian eyes show a spark of curiosity. "My sources say that you have five children between you. I know that Lucius Vorenus had only three." Vorenus thinks for a moment, then nods. "Five is right. There's my daughter-in-law Uta. And Titus Pullo's son, Aeneas."

Pullo throws his head back and laughs. "My bastard son Aeneas. A young man who used to live with his mother, and has joined me here after his mother died. He's useless as a farmer, but has the makings of a good fisherman."

"Your bastard son," Augustus says, very slowly, and this reminds Vorenus of Caesar's boast that he could remember every one of his men and everything that each man had ever told him. He remains stone-faced and motionless as his blood freezes. "The 'private joke' between the two of you, the joke that allowed you to recognize each other while Lucius Vorenus was with Antony at Cleopatra's palace." Augustus stands up and Pullo and Vorenus follow him out of the tent to stand below the arch, the solid symbol of his unchallenged, unchallengeable power.

"You can go," Augustus Caesar says quietly. "I'll see you tomorrow, at the ceremony." They salute and march out together, side by side. But as soon as they are no longer in sight of the pavilion, on the start of the rocky path that leads up to their hill, Vorenus wheels around, grabs Pullo by the arm and forces him to turn and face him.

"Explain yourself," he says between clenched teeth.

"Whoa," shouts Pullo, and there's no stopping him after that. " _You_ explain yourself. Explain what a dead man was doing in Augustus' pavilion. Explain what you told your children, you've been with them for what, three years, and you were going to dump them all over again, for good this time. Publius as well." He grabs Vorenus by both shoulders and bites his lips, restraining himself from shaking him, as if he was Aeneas. "And of course, I didn't fucking matter, because I could bloody well cope with everything, right?"

Vorenus shakes himself free and moves a couple of steps around Pullo. "Right," he says, glaring. "A dead man is right. I've had three years of borrowed time," _the best I've had so far_ , but he doesn't add this, "the reckoning had to come sooner or later. And _yes_ , my going was the logical thing to do." He gestures impatiently. "And yes, of course you would have coped. You always do." His anger is beginning to evaporate, then another thought strikes him, and he steps back and looks Pullo over. "And what in Hades did you do with your son, the bastard fisherman?"

Pullo smirks. "He's deep-sea fishing with Probus. In case anyone asked, Aeneas was Probus' slave. I told him not to fuck up this time."

"I suppose he was thrilled to bits when you also told him that you were off to get yourself tortured and killed?"

Pullo looks away. "I didn't. I figured out you could explain to him. If necessary." He sighs and looks at Vorenus, uncertain and open, like that time in the Aventine Collegium, before they beat the shit out of each other. "You want a fight? I'll give it to you if you do. But I don't like fighting you."

Vorenus thinks back to the room of the Collegium. _I was insane with grief, and I provoked you and almost killed you, and you left, but then you came back, and found me, and gave me back my children. And myself._ He lifts an eyebrow, a corner of his mouth twitching. "You don't?"

Pullo shakes his head, quiet and serious. "I don't."

Vorenus extends his arms. Pullo steps into them. They stand still for a long moment, body to body, each feeling the other's breath warm on his neck, each feeling the other's unseen smile.

"Come on. We've got a long walk uphill."

  
  


It's late afternoon. The family is resting at home after the long day; the only one absent is Aeneas, who has been sent deep-sea fishing for another couple of days. The slaves have unhitched the horses from the wagon. Pullo and Vorenus have walked all the way up the hill and are looking down. The vines and the rows of vegetables are bright green lines against the russet and yellow of the trees, the sea is shimmering in the distance, and they can breathe in the smell of earth and grass. They are both tired, the rush of energy of the last two days is subsiding and leaving them with the awareness that years and adventures are beginning to take their toll.

They sit side by side in the shade of a large oak. "Good ceremony," Vorenus says, stretching out a kink in his back. "Good food, tables set up in every street, free meat and wine for three days," Pullo adds, grinning. Then he takes his mind to a loftier plane: "I'm glad the families who lost people to the pirates received some compensation. Aulus lost half a hand, but he's gained a big bag of silver." He looks at his companion quizzically. "Now will you admit that a single ruler can be a good thing?"

Vorenus shakes his head. "A single ruler is like a god. You bow to him, accept his gifts, and build arches in order to keep his favour and avert his wrath." He shrugs. "But all things considered, it could have gone worse. As long as Augustus lives, we'll be left in peace. Provided we stay away from Rome."

"Do you mind?"

Vorenus stands up, moves a few steps, looks into the distance. "What're you looking at?" Pullo asks, a little drowsily.

"Trying to see if we can spot the Arch from here." A celebration of Rome, of the power they defended for so long. And at the same time a new local landmark, the focus of their new home.

"And can you?"

"No." Pullo is sitting with his back against the trunk, legs stretched out. Vorenus goes back to the oak and sits between Pullo's legs, leaning back against Pullo's chest.

"Do you mind?" Pullo repeats, his voice low and a little rough, running his hands down Vorenus' sides.

"No." Vorenus lifts his face towards him.


End file.
